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For a while now, I’ve been hoping that someone would publish data on the current state autism prevalence by birth year in Denmark. Denmark has been used for epidemiological studies for autism since their is a national database for health care. Thus, one can obtain a count of all people in Denmark who have been diagnosed with autism. Which is not the same thing as saying they have a count of all people in the country who are autistic. One can be autistic and not be diagnosed, as we will see.

A recent study using the Danish database is Recurrence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Full- and Half-Siblings and Trends Over Time: A Population-Based Cohort Study. It’s an interesting study and I feel somewhat guilty for pulling the time-trend data out for my own discussion. In short, the study found that if a family has one child who is autistic, the chance for a subsequent child to be autistic is about 7 times higher than for families without an autistic child. This is fairly consistent with many other sibling studies over the years, but much lower than found in the recent baby siblings study out of the MIND Institute. That might be due to the active surveillance used by the team at MIND. I.e. they were actively monitoring and testing baby siblings.

Much more, they conclude:

Although the results from our comparison of recurrence in full- and half-siblings support the role of genetics in ASDs, the significant recurrence in maternal half-siblings may support the idea of a contributing role of factors associated with pregnancy and the maternal intrauterine environment. Finally, the lack of a time trend in the relative recurrence risk in our data suggests that the likely combination of genetic and environmental factors contributes to the risk for ASD recurrence in siblings or that the risk for recurrence because of such factors has not been affected by the rise in the ASD prevalence.

Very interesting–whatever is behind the higher prevalence among younger siblings, it seems to be the same today as 30 years ago.

What’s the overall prevalence of autism in Denmark according to this study? For childhood autism, they report 0.3%. For all ASD’s, 1.2%.

Autism, we are told by those promoting the autism/vaccine link, is unmistakable. Each autism prevalence report is not an estimate, but an accurate count of every autsitic because there is no way to miss an autistic. Back in the day, Rick Rollens was a constant fixture in the news on autism. He was a strong proponent of the idea that one could not miss autism:

WATSON:
Like many parents, Rick is convinced that Russell was damaged by a series of vaccinations. He strongly rejects the idea that the epidemic of autism can be entirely explained by poor diagnosis in the past because numbers have rose over the last few years.

ROLLENS:
Missing child with autism is like missing a train wreck. For us now to now think that somehow we have better identified a child who can’t talk, who has repetitive behaviour. Who makes no eye contact. Who is self- involved and in many cases self-abusive just defies logic.

Mr. Rollens was wrong on two counts (leaving aside his inflammatory and derogatory language). First, autism is not just the child who can not talk, self-involved and self-abusive. Second, yes, a lot of autistics have been missed. We’ve seen that time and time again. Look at the same population at different times and the later study will have found more autistics. An this goes for autistics with intellectual disability, as shown in the recent UCLA/Utah autism followup: “Today’s diagnostic criteria applied to participants ascertained in the 1980s identified more cases of autism with intellectual disability. ”

In that study they found 956 children born in their study period who were diagnosed with autism by 2000:

A total of 956 children with a male to female ratio of 3.5:1 had been diagnosed with autism during the period 1971–2000.

The current Denmark study included individuals diagnosed until the end of 2010. I.e. there were 10 more years of followup. In those 10 years a lot more people were diagnosed. Where there were 956 diagnosed with autism by 2000 (for birth years 1971 to 2000), 2321 were diagnosed by 2010. That’s an increase of 240%. And the new study focused on birth years 1980 to 1999. I.e. the entire 1970’s birth cohort is not included in this count, and they still found over twice as many autistics. Where were they in 2000, when the previous study was performed? Living in Denmark, not identified as autistic.

There are a few factors which are likely behind this increase, but here we have a great example of “increased awareness” affecting autism prevalence.

And, those numbers were for childhood autism. For ASD, the increase is even larger. 10,377 Danes had an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis (for birth years 1980-1999) in the new study (the previous study included none). That’s a whopping 1080% increase. Again, there are a few reasons for this (including the increased awareness above), but here’s what “expanding the definition” does to autism.

Those increases would be an “epidemic” to some if it weren’t for the fact that those autistic Danes were there all along. They just weren’t diagnosed in 2000.

Comment: Denmark is a first world country based in Western Europe. Their schedule appears far more reasonable than ours. They have also been reported to have a much lower rate of autism than the U.S. Do they know something we don’t?

What was that Danish vaccine schedule that Generation Rescue recommended?

DTaP at 3, 5 and 12 months
Hib at 3, 5 and 12 months
IPV at 3, 5 and 12 months, plus 5 years
MMR at 15 months and 12 years

If you dive into more details, it gets even worse for the vaccines and/or thimerosal cause autism argument. Let’s look at the prevalence as a function of birth year for childhood autism and ASD from the recent study:

Consider this statement from a previous study:

This means that children who followed the full vaccination program during the period 1961–1970 had received a total of 400 g of thimerosal or 200 g of ethyl mercury by the age of 15 months and during the period 1970–1992 they had received a total of 250 g of thimerosal or 125 g of ethyl mercury at 10 months of age. In March 1992 the last batch of thimerosalcontaining vaccine was released and distributed from Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.

The thimerosal exposure was higher prior to 1992 than after. But the prevalence of both childhood autism and ASD is higher after the removal of thimerosal. This is the same result as shown in the 2003 study. The number of vaccines seems to be constant over this time period, so number of vaccines/aluminum/too-many-too-soon or other arguments don’t work either.

How about taking just a single year. The prevalence for ASD in 1996-97 was 1.4%. What is the autism prevalence in the U.S. for that year? To answer accurately, I’d contend we need a count today, not an old one. But people promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism take the CDC reports as absolute measures of autism, comparing each report and telling us all about the epidemic. So, let’s take the CDC number for kids born in 1994: 0.8%. That study was reported in 2009.

So, we have 1.4% in Denmark and 0.8%, nearly half the Danish prevalence, in the U.S.. Denmark had no thimerosal, no Hepatitis B shot (birth or otherwise), fewer vaccines and less aluminum exposure. And much higher reported autism prevalence.

Oddly enough, even though there have been many prevalence studies out of Denmark, Tomljenovic and Shaw didn’t include Denmark in their study “Do aluminum vaccine adjuvants contribute to the rising prevalence of autism?” My guess is that Denmark didn’t fit their conclusion then, and, like Iceland, would make their analysis fall apart now. It is even more odd that Tomljenovic and Shaw didn’t use Denmark as Denmark was used in a faux-study put out by Generation Rescue. In AUTISM AND VACCINES AROUND THE WORLD: Vaccine Schedules, Autism Rates, and Under 5 Mortality Someone at Generation Rescue made the first attempt at the sleight of hand of comparing the autism prevalence in various countries vs their vaccine schedules. At that time, 2009, Generation Rescue claimed that the autism prevalence in Denmark was 1 in 2,200, misrepresenting the 2003 study discussed here. The raw prevalence in this 2008 study was 0.65% or about 1 in 153. That value didn’t fit the thesis that the Generation Rescue author wanted to convey.

One argument found on the internet is that the 2003 Denmark paper fudged the results by clipping the last years off the data presented. An email involving people involved in the study is quoted as saying, “But the incidence and prevalence are still decreasing in 2001“. Oh, my, we are told, the autism prevalence and incidence actually went down after the removal of thimerosal!

But, it didn’t. The prevalence of childhood autism (basically what was studied in the 2003 paper) in Denmark is flat from birth cohorts 1996-2004. Flat. The prevalence of ASD’s do see a decline. That must be it! Evidence that thimerosal was causing autism in Denmark! But it isn’t. The prevalence of ASD in 2003-04 is the same as that in 1990-91, before thimerosal was removed. Why does the ASD prevalence go down? We can’t say for sure, but my strong suspicion is that it’s the same reason why the authors in 2003 were seeing a decrease: too few years of follow up. Autistic kids are typically diagnosed earlier than those with other ASD’s, but the average age was about 5 in Denmark in 2003 (as I recall). ASD kids can have an average age of diagnosis of 8. Recall that the recently released study followed kids up to the end of 2010. It’s no surprise to me that the estimated prevalence for ASD kids born in 2002 is lower than that for kids born in 2000 in this study. And this is consistent with the flat prevalence for kids with childhood autism diagnoses, as they are typically diagnosed earlier and 8-9 years would be enough to find the majority of the autistics in that population.

What about the idea that there’s a “changepoint” in the autism prevalence in Denmark and California pointing to some event in the late 1980s that’s contributing to autism prevalence? For one thing, the present study notes that the recurrence risk doesn’t change with time, so that’s good evidence against such an idea. There is no changepoint in the California data in the 1980’s, as it is exponential and fitting it to two straight lines is just a mistake. What about the prevalence data just released? The data are not finely spaced in birth years, in my opinion, to give a good idea of any “changepoints” in the 1980’s. But there is a changepoint of sorts in the childhood autism data in the 1990’s. The data plateaus at about 1996. But, as already noted, this doesn’t coincide with anything related to vaccines. The ASD prevalence appears to peak at about 1994, but, again, this doesn’t coincide with vaccine events and, I suspect, results largely from lack of follow up for the kids in the later birth years.

How about the MMR vaccine? MMR uptake for young children (MMR1) was basically flat from 1987-1997. Uptake rose somewhat after that. So, during the period that the estimated prevalence was increasing, MMR uptake was basically flat. During the time that the estimated prevalence was either flat (childhood autism) or decreasing (ASD’s), the MMR uptake was increasing. So if we were to play the “correlation equals causation” game, MMR prevents autism. (two notes, preventing rubella infections most likely does prevent some autism and the link above shows a nice example of rubella infections going down after MMR was introduced in 1987. The two points are not linked because most women in Denmark who were infected with rubella before 18 weeks gestation chose abortion, resulting in a low congenital rubella syndrome prevalence).

How about the “fetal cells in vaccines cause autism” argument? It’s one without biological plausibility, but then so was the thimerosal idea. I’d be interested in seeing how the vaccines were produced in Denmark in the 1990’s, but at present, the MMR vaccine there is developed using chicken eggs, not fetal cell lines. And they don’t routinely vaccinate against chickenpox, another vaccine in the U.S. using fetal cell lines. It looks like at least as far back as 1999 they were using egg-based vaccine production for MMR.

So, it appears we have a country with no vaccines grown in fetal cell lines with an autism prevalence as high or higher than that in the U.S.. In other words, the “vaccines from fetal cell lines caused the ‘autism epidemic’ theory” also appears to be debunked by the Denmark data.

So, how about the rise in estimated prevalence in the 1980’s. Is it “real”, as in does it represent an actual increase in the fraction of autistics in the population? It’s a good question and one which could be answered by performing a real study of autism prevalence in adults. The sort of study I and others have called for in the U.S., but that most autism-parent advocacy groups have refused to support. Such a study would not only answer the question of the prevalence, but it would give us valuable data on what has led to success and failure among the autistic adult population.

Lastly, let’s discuss a comment statement one will read or hear. It goes something like “the autism prevalence was 1 in 10,000 in 1980 and it’s 1 in 1,000 today”. This involves a number of sleights of hand. First, the autism prevalence wasn’t 1 in 10,000 in 1980. It was a few in 10,000 (Wing and Gould reported about 5/10,000). Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when people start taking ratios (it went up a gazillion percent) a factor of 2 or 3 in the denominator makes a difference. Second, this was the estimated prevalence based on the number of autistics diagnosed at the time. As shown above, the childhood autism prevalence estimate for Denmark in the 1980’s increased by 240% in the past decade. This was not a real increase, but better identification. Third, the comparison is between autism (childhood autism, DSM-III autism or some other restrictive definition) vs. autism spectrum disorders. Also shown above was that the prevalence of ASD’s in the 1980’s increased by a factor of 10, increasing only in the past 10 years.

A factor of 10 in the numerator, a factor of 3 or 4 in the denominator and pretty soon you are talking about a big part of the increases observed.

In the end, none of the above arguments are that new. Or, to put it better, none of the vaccines-cause-autism arguments had much real support. The mercury idea has lost much of the support it had 10 years ago in the parent community, but it persists. The aluminum in vaccines idea has risen to try to take the place of the mercury hypothesis, but it is based on the exact same smoke and mirrors. The idea that the increase in autism is due to the MMR has been scientifically dead for years. And, yet, these ideas persist. And they cause harm, both to the community at large and to the autism community.

The Baby Sibs Consortium reported a 19% recurrence rate in children with an older sibling. If entire segments of the population are excluded from a sample, then there are no adjustments that can reliably produce accurate estimates that are representative of the entire population. All of the Baby Sibs Consortium are heavily recruited volunteer families and include less than 700 families combined to date in contrast to the Danish sibling recurrence study sample of over 1,200,000 children, a population based study that included all children born in Denmark. The ascertainment bias in self-selected volunteer samples has been well documented in epidemiology. In autism this has been seen in the narrowly defined twin studies. The 1995 British twin study produced an MZ concordance rate of 60% and a DZ twin concordance rate of 0%, the implication being that there is no recurrence in siblings for narrowly defined autism. Ritvo in 1985 found a concordance for narrowly defined autism in 40 twin pairs of 95.7% in the monozygotic twins (22 of 23) and 23.5% in the dizygotic twins (four of 17). The British study recruited willing families by advertisement and requests for volunteers by contacting clinicians and special schools. Classical twin study design cannot factor in the high rate of de novo gene mutations in autism therefore the autism twin study heritability estimates are also greatly inflated. The best epidemiology studies as far as autism is concerned is coming out of Scandinavia (Denmark and Norway) because they are entire general population studies. The Scandinavian countries for decades have been recording the health and mental health records of all its citizens from the womb through the grave beginning with the socialized health system which covers all Norwegian and Danish citizens. In the last decade the Scandinavians have digitalized the national health and national mental health registries records of all their citizens and the records of more than 3 million children are now available to researchers throughout the world. Epidemiology general population research is now increasingly being produced by the Danish and Norwegian research groups. In the last few months they have produced general population research that found a 7% sibling recurrence rate. a high autism risk associated with prenatal exposure to anti-convulsant drugs. A study that found a high risk for autism in prenatal Valproate Acid exposure and pre-conception and prenatal folic acid supplementation reduces the risk for autism. The Danes also found no association between vaccination and autism risk.

We don’t know how many off these adults had a different diagnosis in 2000 or what those diagnoses might be. They didn’t have a diagnosis of childhood autism. They could have had an ASD diagnosis (PDD-NOS or Asperger) but they were not reported in earlier study.

Today we are effectively still getting figures just up to 2000 with only wild guesses what is happening in the past ten and more years.

I also note that the vaccine schedule starts only at 3 months for Denmark and surely a point of major interest?

USA starts now in the womb but for all by day one.

UK begins at 2 months.

The longer the first vaccine the approximately less cases of autism perhaps although as for all such generalistions it cannot mean much unless we reverse the accelerated vaccine schedules for a decelerated schedule which hardly seems likely at present?

Current research is again showing the self evident that the longer we wait the better the vaccines works. And again while in Denmark MMR comes at 15 months other countries start always at 12 months with many going through the 9 month barrier towards 6 months.

Many who are concerned about vaccine harm would insist that head size measurements must be done both immediately before and a reasonable time after when any head change would still be expected to be zero.

The reason is simple it would pick up INFLAMMATION a known event parallel to immunity as shown by Charles Richet, repeated by hundreds of vaccine scientists but ignored to the detriment of babies future health.

Not only would it indicate easily and cheaply any future health issues but medical intervention could reduce vaccine harm unexpected to near zero rather than ferment trouble with no parental or medical knowledge of future disaster now at over 1 per cent in some countries.

A simple observation of many baby photos with bulging fontanelles is the give away for fermenting possible brain disorders for a disproportionate number of such infants.

Many will be the cause of family breakdown as parents are actually accused for these head swelling events in ever rising numbers.

I enjoyed your article concerning Danish ASD prevalence, and intentional debunking of the vaccines cause autism camp. Well written, however as is the case with most pro-vaccine publications they can often be inconclusive or somewhat misleading. Such is the case. My sincere wish is that you will post this comment so your readers can get the other side of the story. I am the father of an autistic child, so are hundreds of thousands of other parents for whom I will speak.
For the most part you have taken great detail in presenting statistical information on Denmark, and some statistical information on the U.S.. Statistics can be manipulated. Prior to 1930 the ASD prevalence rate was effectively “zero.” Prior to 1980 it was 1:10,000. Now the U.S. ASD prevalence rate is 1:50 (1:34 for boys). You say the reason for this increase, in part, that we’re diagnosing the disease better. This is not entirely true. Methodological diagnoses have remained relatively unchanged for years. Graduating from high school in 1977, I didn’t know what autism was, and never heard the word mentioned. Today most everyone is aware of autism, and either knows somebody with the disease, or has a family member who is affected. They weren’t there all along. Our own government acknowledges autism as an “epidemic,” that word was never mentioned in your article, and there’s no such thing as a “genetic epidemic.”
You can cite all the facts, and statistics you want, disproving vaccines cause autism, or that vaccines are safe. Until you’ve been affected personally, or have a child experience a bad reaction to a vaccination that results in autism, then you might adopt a different point of view. Consider the case of Hanna Poling. Hanna received five shots against nine diseases in one day. DTaP, Haemophilus Influenza type B (Hib), MMR, varicella, and inactivated polio.
Medical examiners at the DHHS concluded that Hanna’s injuries, and autism were the result of vaccines. The Poling’s were awarded an initial sum of $1.5 million for pain and suffering, lost earnings, and life care. They will receive an additional $500,000 dollars a year for Hanna’s care. Total compensation could easily exceed $20 million dollars.
Since the first VICP claims were made in 1989, a total of $2.27 billion in payments have been made to 2,900 petitioners. Since the inception of the VICP program, no less than 83 cases of autism have been compensated. The government has been less than forthright to the public about the casual relationship between thimerosal and autism. The government has in fact already proved that there is an association between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders. They just don’t want you to know. This was proven by Dr. Thomas Verstreaten, who at the time was a resident expert for the CDC, and with the NIP. In July 2000 he presented his findings at the Simpsonwood Retreat Center. He found statistically significant relationships between the exposures and outcomes, at one, three, and six months of age. The entire category of neurolodevelopmental delays.
Information and proof of an association, can also be found in the Vaccine Safety Data-link. The VSD contains data on vaccine type, date of vaccination, current vaccinations, medical outcomes of outpatient, inpatient, and urgent care visits. Data on birth and census, and comparisons of the MMR vaccine, versus children who receive MMR and varicella vaccine separately. The VSD report investigations of their findings to VAERS. The CDC estimates only 10% of all adverse reactions to vaccines ever get reported, and as few as one percent.
Many people have criticized the Geier’s over the years, that wasn’t always the case. Dr. Mark and David Geier are the only two independent researchers to ever access the VSD and see their data. No one else has, nor ever will again. It took the Geier’s years to gain access. What they found in the VSD seemed to be confirming, that the more thimerosal children got, the greater the risk they had of neurodevelopmental disorders. After leaving the VSD, their proof, and data sets were immediately destroyed. The CDC could ill afford to let this information out.
In February 2005 the IOM came out with a report titled, Vaccine Safety Research Data Access and Public Trust. The report suggested that the 2004 IOM was flawed, criterial was changed inappropriately, and that the government data was manipulated and withheld. One day after the report was released, director of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding fired the entire Vaccine Immunization Program. The 2004 IOM results, and all other studies that claimed no association to neurological disorders had been discredited.
On September 20, 2002, congressional order to VSD from the government, that they let a contract, and paid $195 million to a private company to kept anyone from seeing the VSD over a period of ten years. I have a copy of the contract, #200-2002-00732, which also has been renewed. The whole U.S. policy on the controversial issue, of giving children vaccinations at birth, is based on a study that no one has access to.
Thimerosal was removed from Danish vaccines in 1992. “Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism:Negative Ecological Evidence,” was based on Danish population, and was co-authored by Dr. Poul Thorsen. The study was also “fast-tracked” for publication in “Pediatrics” in 2003. Actually, the study did claim that autism went up after thimerosal was removed from the vaccines, based on data between 1970 and 2000. And yes, the Danish Registry added outpatient clinics to the total count of autism cases. Denmark also changed their version of our comparable DSM IV in 1993, to include a broader definition of autism.
Of the seven co-authors, three received direct funding from the CDC on vaccine safety related projects. Two of the authors worked for the Statens Serum Institute. Still, Dr. Poul Thorsen was indicted in April 2001, on 22 counts of money laundering and fraud. He remains at the top of the “most wanted list” for the HHS Office of Inspector General. The total misrepresentation of this study went a long ways in reinforcing the “non-existent” body of evidence, as cited by the CDC’s claim to disproved the association of thimerosal to autism. You can rearrange the statistics any way you want.
Scientifically speaking, there are all kinds of reasons not to inject thimerosal into the human body, unless you really don’t like someone. Thimerosal is 49.6% ethyl mercury, mercury is the most harmful toxin known to man, next to plutonium. A single drop of mercury can contaminate an entire lake. According to EPA, a child would have to weigh several hundred pounds, to be within safety guidelines of following our recommended vaccination schedule. The suggested recommended vaccine scheduled is ludicrous. If any child adheres to the schedule faithfully, they will have received well over 100 vaccines, and at least 49 vaccinations prior to reaching their sixth birthday. We live in a world with mercury, we get a certain amount of mercury in our bodies daily. However, some people, and children, do not have the ability to flush it out of their systems like the rest of us. It is possible for anyone to exceed the total mercury body burden their system will allow.
Aluminum is a known neurotoxin. What you neglected to mention were all the other harmful ingredients that are added to vaccines. Phenoxyethanol (Antifreeze), Formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde (Pesticide, embalming agent), sodium borate (used for Cockroach killer), hydrolyzed gelatin (ground animal carcass), monosodium L-glumate (Obesity, Diabetes), potassium chloride (Lethal injection), potassium phosphate monobasic (liquid fertilizer agent), sodium phosphate dibasic (fireproofing agent), sodium phosphate monobasic (Known Toxin), to name only a few. You were easy to dismiss aborted human fetal cell lines with harmful contaminated retroviruses, and fragmented DNA, as a probable contributing factor towards autism. This is not entirely true either.
Perhaps the worlds foremost leading authority on the subject of aborted fetal cell lines is Dr. Theresa A. Deisher. President and founder of SCPI. Her non-profit is dedicated to research and education on the immoral and harmful endorsement of our immunization programs current pro-fetal vaccines. She also seeks to develop fetal-free vaccines. You mentioned “change-points.” The only universal childhood factor associated with all three change-points is the introduction of vaccines contaminated with aborted fetal DNA and retroviral fragments. In 1979 the first aborted fetal vaccine was introduced to the U.S. (MMRII). In 1989 a second dose of this vaccine was added, and compliance doubled, and in 1995 another aborted fetal vaccine was introduced to the U.S., Varicella-chickenpox. SCPI has uncovered data from the CDC, and the U.S. Dept. of Education, that shows that the use of chickenpox vaccine is directly related to autism disorder prevalence in every state in the U.S.. Shorter DNA strands recombine with our own, resulting in autoimmune deficiencies. Insertional mutagenesis also occurs, this can result in cancer.
Something else to consider, there have never been any safety studies conducted on the health outcomes of those children bombarded with multiple doses of vaccines. Scientifically speaking, you can’t claim the combination of two, or more, of any of the aforementioned adjuvants or factors don’t cause autism. Truthfully, aside from my statistics or your statistics, there is a much bigger problem than a study in Denmark.
Obviously, there is an environmental factor involved. Suppose for a moment that vaccinations were responsible for neurodevelopmental disorders. If the CDC had to admit they were lying to the public all along, there would be a big problem. The courts would be flooded with lawsuits, and there wouldn’t be enough money to settle all the entitlement claims. Heads would roll. Current laws shield pharmaceutical companies from liability of injury or death, even if they are willfully negligent. Contrary to what HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says, no one has shown, or continues to show that drugs and vaccines are safe or effective. Lawmakers and legislatures pockets are lined with Big pharma profits. The revolving door of employment between CDC, public health officials, and pharma is laughable. Special interests successfully hinder any meaningful level of justice, correction, or objectivity.
Please Matt correct me if I’m wrong. If I were to assume for a moment, there was no association of vaccinations to autism. Then why are more children autistic, and why has our vaccination schedule quadrupled over the last ten years? Is it really your position that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism. Or, based on the information you currently have, is that what your willing to concede. If it were announced tomorrow that thimerosal was a problem all along, what faith would you have in your statistics?
My guess is that your not the parent of an autistic child. I would not want to wish that upon anyone. I love my son, and I wouldn’t want him to change at all. We’re all dealt different cards. All the statistics in the world still won’t change the circumstances, or the facts

Not pro-vaccine. Pro science. Pro fact. Countering misinformation, such as all the old, tired arguments you present, is not “pro-vaccines”. It isn’t pro-anything to point out that someone is incorrect.

” I am the father of an autistic child, so are hundreds of thousands of other parents for whom I will speak.”

Please present your credentials. What group(s) do you represent? I recall the NAA claiming tens of thousands of dues paying members when their own tax forms showed the number to be a few hundred.

I find your claim that you speak for “hundreds of thousands of other parents” to be unsubstantiated and

What organization do you represent? What is their actual membership? I recall

I am the father of an autistic child too. I don’t make grandiose claims to speak for vast numbers of others.

I also note you make the common stance of presenting the autism community as parents. Sad how autistics are ignored. What do they think? Do you represent them too? Do you consider their viewpoints valid?

” Statistics can be manipulated. ”

As the people who created the arguments you repeat have aptly demonstrated.

“Prior to 1930 the ASD prevalence rate was effectively “zero.””

Provide a citation. Show me a study which purports to show the prevalence rate of autism spectrum disorders in populations born pre 1930. You can’t. If you could, I would ask you to show me how they used the current definition and understanding of autism (difficult since autism spectrum disorders didn’t come into common use for 60 years after 1930).

“Prior to 1980 it was 1:10,000.”

Really? I’ll answer my own question. Again, you don’t have any studies using today’s methods and definition of autism pre 1980. Second, 1 in 10,000 is not even an accurate number for the prevalence of autism (not ASD) pre 1980. You are repeating numbers without checking them.

“You say the reason for this increase, in part, that we’re diagnosing the disease better. This is not entirely true.”

You shift goalposts in two sentences. I say that the increase (at least) in part is due to greater awareness of autism and changes in the way autism is recognized and diagnosed. That said, saying it is “in part” due to one factor can not be countered with “this is not entirely true”. If it is true in part, it is consistent with your inaccurate paraphrase of my statement.

I also don’t use the term “disease”.

” Methodological diagnoses have remained relatively unchanged for years.”

False. They are still changing. Consider the recent study which showed that whether one is diagnosed with autistic disorder, PDD-NOS or Asperger syndrome is dependent on where in the US one is at the time of diagnosis. Consider that age of diagnosis is decreasing with time. Consider that there are large variations in estimated autism prevalence by state (or within a single state), by ethnicity and by socio-economic status.

” Graduating from high school in 1977, I didn’t know what autism was, and never heard the word mentioned.”

So? Why would a high school student be taught about autism?

Check the New York Times in the 1970s. You will find an article entitled “attic children”. Even in the 1970’s disabled American children were shuttered away from the public.

“Today most everyone is aware of autism, and either knows somebody with the disease, or has a family member who is affected. They weren’t there all along.”

They weren’t there all along? Then why do so many studies show that if you go back and check previous populations, you find more autistics? For example, the Utah/UCLA project in the 1980’s missed a large fraction of autistics, per a recent study. And those autistics had lower IQ’s than those reported in the 1980’s.

” Our own government acknowledges autism as an “epidemic,””

If this were the case, I’d be aware of it.

” that word was never mentioned in your article, and there’s no such thing as a “genetic epidemic.”””

Really? Why, then is Down Syndrome (a genetic condition) prevalence rising in the US?

“You can cite all the facts, and statistics you want, disproving vaccines cause autism, or that vaccines are safe. ”

Are you stating that you will ignore facts?

“Until you’ve been affected personally, or have a child experience a bad reaction to a vaccination that results in autism, then you might adopt a different point of view. ”

I am the parent of an autistic child. My point of view is based on what I’ve found *since* the diagnosis.

“Consider the case of Hanna Poling. Hanna received five shots against nine diseases in one day. DTaP, Haemophilus Influenza type B (Hib), MMR, varicella, and inactivated polio.
Medical examiners at the DHHS concluded that Hanna’s injuries, and autism were the result of vaccines.”

Medical Examiners are coroners. DHHS did not examine Hannah Poling either via a coroner or other medical expert. They did not conclude, as you assert, that her autism was the result of vaccines. Back when they included autism in the vaccine award statistics, DHHS made a clear statement that they have never conceded that vaccines cause autism.

” The Poling’s were awarded an initial sum of $1.5 million for pain and suffering, lost earnings, and life care. They will receive an additional $500,000 dollars a year for Hanna’s care. Total compensation could easily exceed $20 million dollars.”

As the person who first broke the story of the Hannah Poling settlement, I am well aware of this.

“Since the first VICP claims were made in 1989, a total of $2.27 billion in payments have been made to 2,900 petitioners. Since the inception of the VICP program, no less than 83 cases of autism have been compensated. The government has been less than forthright to the public about the casual relationship between thimerosal and autism. ”

You are referencing the PACE study. I recall going through the cases they identified and not finding them compelling at all. One can find that discussion in this blog. For example, one case cited by the PACE study mentioned autism–however the context was that the parents were arguing that their kid was *not* autistic. Yet PACE included that in their study.

“The government has in fact already proved that there is an association between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders. They just don’t want you to know. This was proven by Dr. Thomas Verstreaten, who at the time was a resident expert for the CDC, and with the NIP. In July 2000 he presented his findings at the Simpsonwood Retreat Center. He found statistically significant relationships between the exposures and outcomes, at one, three, and six months of age. The entire category of neurolodevelopmental delays.”

Simpsonwood was a big deal in online discussions when I first started looking for information. I wasn’t aware that this was promoted by RFK Jr. in his seriously flawed article “deadly immunity”. Note that one source has pulled it and it has had multiple corrections published. When I read the transcripts for myself I found that people were completely overstating what happened there.

The preliminary information you discuss was not confirmed, either by the team that presented that preliminary data nor in later studies.

” The VSD report investigations of their findings to VAERS. ”

The VSD does not report to VAERS. VAERS is a self-report database.

“The CDC estimates only 10% of all adverse reactions to vaccines ever get reported, and as few as one percent.”

Yes–and people tend to leave out a critical part of this point: minor events are much less likely to be reported than more serious adverse events. Redness, swelling, aches…those don’t get reported.

“Many people have criticized the Geier’s over the years, that wasn’t always the case. ”

Criticism of Mark Geier go back to the beginning of the vaccine program. In early decisions one can find the special masters pointing out that he is “intellectually dishonest” and other flaws.

“Dr. Mark and David Geier are the only two independent researchers to ever access the VSD and see their data. ”

” It took the Geier’s years to gain access. What they found in the VSD seemed to be confirming, that the more thimerosal children got, the greater the risk they had of neurodevelopmental disorders. After leaving the VSD, their proof, and data sets were immediately destroyed. The CDC could ill afford to let this information out.”

Funny how you fail to mention the Geiers attempting to remove data that they were not allowed to take. It is their unethical behavior that is the likely cause for the changes to access to the VSD.

“In February 2005 the IOM came out with a report titled, Vaccine Safety Research Data Access and Public Trust. The report suggested that the 2004 IOM was flawed, criterial was changed inappropriately, and that the government data was manipulated and withheld. ”

Please quote the sections you claim support these assertions.

“One day after the report was released, director of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding fired the entire Vaccine Immunization Program. ”

Really (which if you haven’t noticed yet, is my way of saying–this is not the case, please support your claim)? The whole program was fired?

“The 2004 IOM results, and all other studies that claimed no association to neurological disorders had been discredited.”

It’s up to you to actually support this statement. Which you can’t, because it is a false statement.

“On September 20, 2002, congressional order to VSD from the government, that they let a contract, and paid $195 million to a private company to kept anyone from seeing the VSD over a period of ten years. I have a copy of the contract, #200-2002-00732, which also has been renewed. ”

So, all those studies using the VSD are making up their data, since they can’t see it?

“The whole U.S. policy on the controversial issue, of giving children vaccinations at birth, is based on a study that no one has access to.”

Really? Please, what study is this? Give some citation to back up what is clearly a false claim.

“Thimerosal was removed from Danish vaccines in 1992. “Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism:Negative Ecological Evidence,” was based on Danish population, and was co-authored by Dr. Poul Thorsen. The study was also “fast-tracked” for publication in “Pediatrics” in 2003. Actually, the study did claim that autism went up after thimerosal was removed from the vaccines, based on data between 1970 and 2000. And yes, the Danish Registry added outpatient clinics to the total count of autism cases. Denmark also changed their version of our comparable DSM IV in 1993, to include a broader definition of autism.”

So what? As shown in the article above, the prevalence of autism did go up after the removal of autism. The prevalence of autism in Denmark post thimerosal was higher than the prevalence people claim for the US in the same birth years, while thimerosal was used in the US. Further, the reported prevalence in the UK was higher than that in the US, even though they had a much lower thimerosal exposure.

“Of the seven co-authors, three received direct funding from the CDC on vaccine safety related projects. ”

So what? It’s the job of the CDC to fund this sort of study.

“Two of the authors worked for the Statens Serum Institute. Still, Dr. Poul Thorsen was indicted in April 2001, on 22 counts of money laundering and fraud. He remains at the top of the “most wanted list” for the HHS Office of Inspector General. The total misrepresentation of this study went a long ways in reinforcing the “non-existent” body of evidence, as cited by the CDC’s claim to disproved the association of thimerosal to autism.”

So what? Poul Thorsen is a bad guy. He took money. One can’t jump from that to claiming the results of his entire team are faulty–especially when they’ve been replicated by other teams.

” You can rearrange the statistics any way you want.”

I don’t have to. They support my point.

“Scientifically speaking, there are all kinds of reasons not to inject thimerosal into the human body,”

And now we move away from autism into the “vaccines are scary” phase of almost all such discussions.

” Thimerosal is 49.6% ethyl mercury, mercury is the most harmful toxin known to man, next to plutonium. ”

Really? Provide the evidence. This is an assertion made by David Kirby in his flawed “Evidence of Harm”. Take a look at the MSDS for thimerosal. It ranks as a 2 out of 4 on health hazards. Many substances–including the chelators people have used to try to cure faux mercury intoxication–have similar or worse health risks.

“A single drop of mercury can contaminate an entire lake. ”

If you have a small lake, very big drop and a lake made of some solvent for mercury. I.e., you are incorrect.

“According to EPA, a child would have to weigh several hundred pounds, to be within safety guidelines of following our recommended vaccination schedule. The suggested recommended vaccine scheduled is ludicrous. If any child adheres to the schedule faithfully, they will have received well over 100 vaccines, and at least 49 vaccinations prior to reaching their sixth birthday. ”

Ah, the old let’s use the EPA chronic exposure guideline for one mercury compound for an acute exposure to a different compound. I.e. this is a game of sleight of hand.

“We live in a world with mercury, we get a certain amount of mercury in our bodies daily. However, some people, and children, do not have the ability to flush it out of their systems like the rest of us. It is possible for anyone to exceed the total mercury body burden their system will allow.”

Really? Please provide a link to the study that shows this. Keep in mind that toxicological experts at the Omnibus Autism Proceeding made it very clear that the “poor mercury excretor” hypothesis has no basis.

Ah, the “let’s scare people with ingredients” part of the discussion. I know I’m dealing with someone who doesn’t check his facts when the antifreeze fear mongering comes up. No antifreeze in vaccines. Formaldehyde–you get a larger exposure from eating bananas (one can find Kev Leitch’s discussion of this from years ago on this blog). Gelatin! Oh no! Jello causes autism?

Show me how DNA fragments not only enter a cell, but are then replicated throughout the entire body and we can start this discussion.

“Perhaps the worlds foremost leading authority on the subject of aborted fetal cell lines is Dr. Theresa A. Deisher. President and founder of SCPI. Her non-profit is dedicated to research and education on the immoral and harmful endorsement of our immunization programs current pro-fetal vaccines. She also seeks to develop fetal-free vaccines.”

Yep, she’s taken a hard-line Catholic stance (not supported by the Vatican) that we shouldn’t use fetal cell lines and has been trying to build arguments against these vaccines for some time.

I don’t consider her an authority on the subject. Go ahead and appeal to authority if you wish.

” You mentioned “change-points.” The only universal childhood factor associated with all three change-points is the introduction of vaccines contaminated with aborted fetal DNA and retroviral fragments. ”

Nope. I’ve analyzed an published on this exact topic.

“In 1979 the first aborted fetal vaccine was introduced to the U.S. (MMRII). In 1989 a second dose of this vaccine was added, and compliance doubled, and in 1995 another aborted fetal vaccine was introduced to the U.S., Varicella-chickenpox. SCPI has uncovered data from the CDC, and the U.S. Dept. of Education, that shows that the use of chickenpox vaccine is directly related to autism disorder prevalence in every state in the U.S.. ”

The changepoint in the California data is 1974. Very clear if you plot the data correctly. There’s another one previous to that as well.

“Shorter DNA strands recombine with our own, resulting in autoimmune deficiencies. Insertional mutagenesis also occurs, this can result in cancer.”

Show this to be a fact. Show that the DNA sequences that may be present in a vaccine are the same ones linked to autism. Then show how a single cell, most likely a muscle cell, can absorb DNA and then replicate that DNA to every other cell in the body. The link this to the fact that many genetic markers of autism are known to be active prenatally. So the vaccines would have to make changes before they were administered.

“Something else to consider, there have never been any safety studies conducted on the health outcomes of those children bombarded with multiple doses of vaccines.”

Bombarded? Hardley a scientific term. A clearly biased term if you ask me.

” Scientifically speaking, you can’t claim the combination of two, or more, of any of the aforementioned adjuvants or factors don’t cause autism. ”

Ah, the “you can’t prove a negative” argument. You can’t prove that there isn’t teapot orbiting the sun, one that is too small to be detected by earth bound telescopes (an old counter argument). Doesn’t mean there is a teapot out there.

“Truthfully, aside from my statistics or your statistics, there is a much bigger problem than a study in Denmark.”

Yes, there is fear mongering which endangers public health, subjects autistics to unproven and potentially dangerous “therapies”.

“Obviously, there is an environmental factor involved.”

Yes, as discussed many times on this blog. Environmental factor does not equate to vaccine, however.

” Suppose for a moment that vaccinations were responsible for neurodevelopmental disorders.”

I have many times. Unfortunately the data and arguments supporting the supposition are poor.

” If the CDC had to admit they were lying to the public all along, there would be a big problem. The courts would be flooded with lawsuits, and there wouldn’t be enough money to settle all the entitlement claims. Heads would roll. Current laws shield pharmaceutical companies from liability of injury or death, even if they are willfully negligent. Contrary to what HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says, no one has shown, or continues to show that drugs and vaccines are safe or effective. Lawmakers and legislatures pockets are lined with Big pharma profits. The revolving door of employment between CDC, public health officials, and pharma is laughable. Special interests successfully hinder any meaningful level of justice, correction, or objectivity.”

Ah, it’s a conspiracy. Sure. And each new person who comes to the CDC is indoctrianated. We are just waiting for the CDC’s “Eric Snowden” to blow the whole thing apart?

“Please Matt correct me if I’m wrong.”

I just have.

” If I were to assume for a moment, there was no association of vaccinations to autism. Then why are more children autistic, and why has our vaccination schedule quadrupled over the last ten years? ”

You haven’t proven that there are more autistic children born today than previously.

Why has our vaccine schedule increased? To prevent disease. Is that such a difficult concept?

“Is it really your position that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism. ”

Yes–thimerosal does not increase autism risk. So much data shows this to be the case.

“Or, based on the information you currently have, is that what your willing to concede. If it were announced tomorrow that thimerosal was a problem all along, what faith would you have in your statistics?”

Having been shown multiple times that your statistics are faulty, why do you still cling to your faith in a a faulty conculsion?

“My guess is that your not the parent of an autistic child.”

Wrong. Easily verifiable that you are wrong.

” I would not want to wish that upon anyone. ”

I won’t use the phrase that comes to mind, but you are welcome to take your beliefs and go elsewhere. To wish that I don’t have my child is about as rude a statement as one can make. Like all children, my child is a source of joy and love. Like all children, my child is source of worry and sleepless nights.

“I love my son, and I wouldn’t want him to change at all. We’re all dealt different cards. All the statistics in the world still won’t change the circumstances, or the facts”

Thank you for you quick and lengthy response to my post. I have a great deal of respect for your work, and for your opinion. We simply will have to agree to disagree. I think this fellow Jesus was accurate when He said, “Do not give what’s holy to the dog’s; nor cast your pearl before swine, lest they trample them under your feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” For me to preach my doctrine, or ardently held beliefs to someone who is totally not receptive to them is useless. It cheapens my message, and subjects me to reprisal. My bad.

Are credentials required to support anyone’s beliefs or point of view? There are over 670,000 children living with autism in the U.S., many of their parents maintain that autism is an epidemic, and that vaccines play a roll. I’m not a member of any organized group, simply one voice of many who share a common belief.

I have no right to represent anyone’s position, or to speak on behalf of anyone else. I’ll grant you that.

According to the CDC, autism was not first described till 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner. Were there children with autism before that? Yes, and there are more children being born with autism now than ever before.

My English was poor. What I should have wrote was that, “there are not more autistic children due to better diagnoses, there are more of them.”

By definition autism is a disease. It’s a neurological developmental disorder, so is Asperger’s, and PDD NOS. They all are on the rise. But please don’t compare Down Syndrome to ASD, when you talk about developmental disorders on the rise. They are both bad. Please tell me what the current prevalence rates for both are. CDC monitoring and tracking are quite poor, checking only one county in six states, of their 12 state ADDM Network.

Regardless of education ASD was virtually non existent when I graduated from high school in 1977. That’s why it was unheard of.

Our own government acknowledges the 1:10,000, and the CDC goes right along with it. Let’s go more recent. On July 10, 2012, Kathleen Sebelius said that as recently as the 1990’s, scientists thought autism was a rare disability that only affected one in every 2000 kids. Now it’s 1:50. Better diagnoses don’t account for such a huge jump Matt.

Simply because you’re not aware of everything the government says, are you implying they didn’t say it. Better listen to the November 12, 2012 OCGR hearing 1 in 88 Children, a look into the federal response to rising rates of autism. Our government says there is an epidemic. And based on population, there is an epidemic.

If vaccines are safe why is there a vaccine court? And why are there laws preventing parents to receive compensation they’re entitled to, even when there are harmful side affects that result in injury or death? And yes, even if manufacturers are willfully negligent.

Studies comparing vaccinated children to unvaccinated children have not been revealed. Yet. When they are, and if they support your position, I’ll be the first one to admit I’m wrong. Until that time I will exercise caution based on the entire body of evidence from all sources.

The vaccine courts have conceded that vaccines play a roll in autism. And they have also concede that vaccines are responsible for numerous injuries. If it’s your position that vaccine injuries aren’t compelling so be it.

VAERS. Would you consider a flu shot that results in GBS, and paralysis a minor event? I certainly would. Yet the CDC admits only 10% of ALL cases, and as few as only one percent ever get reported. GBS included.

I won’t even get into discussing the Geier’s. I wrote all about them in my book. I’ll send you a copy if you like. You don’t know the whole story. Based on what you do know, I can understand your opinion. I simply don’t share it.

I know for a fact of at least one credible independent researcher who has been denied access to the VSD, as recently as July of this year.

Despite the Danish study, ASD prevalence has risen in every state in the country. I’ts also risen in almost every country in the world. Your right it’s not an epidemic it’s pandemic. If your going to look at Denmark, and assume Iceland, then also look at South Korea, and Sub Sahara Africa. There’s nothing flat there. Matt there are statistics that support either of our positions. It all depends on where you look. I don’t know everything, and neither do you.

The CDC’s job to do studies. Please, the CDC has two black eyes. There have been numerous cases where they have mislead us, and flat out lied to us. I really don’t know why most people take everything they say at face value. You are a very good journalist and you do extensive research, it shows in everything you write. I have done a great deal of research myself. My opinions are not my own. But you’re wrong about something else.

Yes there is antifreeze in vaccines. And that’s established fact. Yes, there are also a lot for other harmful ingredients that have no business being in vaccinations. Forget scare tactics, it’s all about complete disclosure, and being a well informed consumer. If everyone were told the ingredients in vaccinations, and the potential harm of those vaccinations, some people would refuse them. By telling me there’s no antifreeze in vaccines, you’re telling me your not as well informed as I am.

I won’t get into thimerosal or mercury with you either at this time. The EPA feels there is cause for concern. Generally speaking, the INC5 legally binding treaty, decision to ban worldwide use of mercury, feels there’s a concern. You can put it in your body, but just keep it out of mine.

You feel that Dr. Deisher is not an authority on fetal free vaccines. She is the inventor of 23 U.S. issued patents, and the first person in the world to identify and clone a stem cell from the human heart. I’ll stand behind her science over your research every day of the week. You’re not a good scientist, or are you a scientist? Maybe you are.

1974 California VAERS, are you kidding me? In 2000 the EPA published data confirming the 1988 changepoint, as a worldwide autism disorder changepoint.

You wanna begin to talk about DNA? For gene therapy, 9 boys were given essentially the same ingredients as contaminates in vaccines. Human DNA fragment 1114 bp long, fragment of the MMLV retrovirus. Outcome; four out of the nine boys developed cancer. Inappropriate gene insertion into LMO2, overexpression hematopoietic development accelerated. Additional somatic mutations in leukemic cells (J Clinical Investigation 2008 v118 Howe et. al.)

“Bombarded.” You got me there, definitely not scientific terminology. But then again I’m not a scientist. Are you? By definition a vaccine is an environmental factor. But you’re right, should have said, “Multiple bomb blasts of vaccines in such a short period of time.”

Fear mongering is not my business. The CDC, and big pharma do that job just fine. I’m just a justifiably concerned individual. Some people will agree with you, and some people won’t, and there’s certainly no harm in that. There’s no need for me to prove anything. According to the government, the CDC, and public health officials, autism is a major public health concern. They all agree there are simply more cases of autism now than there were before, diagnoses not withstanding.

I was completely out of line in stating, “I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.”

What I should have said, “no child should be injured by a vaccination, that has the potential to result in a neurodevelopmental disorder.”

Clearly there is a problem, can we at least agree upon that?

I’m not a scientist, doctor, or researcher, simply self educated. Based on all the information, and research that I’ve carefully considered, vaccines have harmful effects. They can, and in some cases do result in neurodevelopmental disorders, and ASD.

“. I think this fellow Jesus was accurate when He said, “Do not give what’s holy to the dog’s; nor cast your pearl before swine, lest they trample them under your feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.””

Got it. Your words are pearls. I am a swine. Pretty amusing in a non-self-aware sort of way.

Sorry, I skipped the rest of what you wrote. Hard to see the point, really.

Dr Chapela actually being punished for his work that didnt suit the monopoly chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

And it is important to point out how the first one slides over matters such as the gene transferred contains fragments of man-engineered viruses, bacteria, antibiotics et al while the second embarrassing finding gets denied by other scientists by asserting that the research was sloppy. In fact it took 7 years before science could settle the argument in favour of Chapela. Giving serious concern to listening to arguments made about research that cannot be done overnight but takes time and often a long time to find out exactly what the long term consequences are.

GMO material is now increasingly an exposure and present in many vaccines today as well as other injectable materials used during pregnancy. We do not today have to wait even for that first GMO vaccine at day one to have cause for concern.

Jon made the very pragmatic assertion that while we know the history of autism goes back 70 years we have only become acutely aware of this disorder in the 21st century.

As a teacher meeting thousands of pupils there were no cases known to me until after retiring towards the end of the 20th century. Partly ignorance and other reasons but FACT nevertheless.

China is a case in point where the rise has been phenomenal and has risen in ten or so years from almost zero to well over one million.

Today I cannot count the number of such autism cases both near where I live in France or in family and friends families most of whom are barely over ten years of age yet. Not fantastically high but enough to realise it is one of the most serious disorders we face and one that has come up from nowhere in a very short time period.

We are as various groups interested in both the illness and hopefully the cause; for it is not likely that chemical treatments will work and most of those tried have been rounded on as anything from worthless to downright dangerous and there is no reason to believe today in the MAGIC BULLET anymore.

History of PINKS DISEASE (PD) tells us the best way to eliminate such disease is to root out the cause or causes and for PD this took nearly 150 years with missed opportunities going back a hundred years nearly.

Rather like vaccines for all of that 150 years it was those parents looking after their child that had the highest risk of having a PD child simply because the medical interventions finally were the root cause of PD.

Medical treatments to prevent future illness have time and again proven often more dangerous than doing nothing than observing common sense precautions.

(I have no idea where this reply will show up on this thread…apologies in advance)

@ Jon Hewitt:

You’ve made an utter fool of yourself with your multiple uncited posts about the now debunked link between vaccines and autism.

You keep telling us to read the Oller &Oller book which you claim contains facts from the CDC, which prove there is some sort of connection between rising autism prevalence which is somehow, in some way connected to the development and licensing of vaccines which protect children from serious, oftentimes deadly, V-P-Ds. That book’s “Foreward” was written by the odious, disgraced and discredited former medical doctor Andrew Wakefield…and all the profits derived from the sale of that book went straight to Wakefield’s greedy hands at Thoughtful House. Do you really think we are going to “forget about Wakefield”?

You keep urging us to purchase and read Oller & Oller’s book. We’ve read the reviews and the only favorable reviews of the book come from other “autodidacts” (the “journalists” at the crank anti-vaccine blog, Age of Autism). Why would any of us be bothered reading such a book?

Yes one book of many that I have read. No one has to read anything you’re right. It is abundantly clear to me that after 15 months, I have wasted my time in making any comments or responding to any followers of this website. That’s clearly a proven observation.

In retrospect I have learned a great deal from Leftbrainrightbrain. So it hasn’t been a total waste of my time. Perhaps without realizing it, everything I’ve heard and learned on this website, has only served to reinforce everything I believe. So I concede resignation.

I also believe that Einstein was correct. The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has it’s limits. I have definitely reached mine. God bless you all, and good luck in everything that you do.

you have spent a great deal of time telling us that you have extensive knowledge of a subject without ever demonstrating that knowledge. You state that you wasted your time. What did you expect to get for your time? Acknowledgement that you understand the topic you are discussing? People to accept that you are correct? Both are difficult to accomplish as long as you don’t really say anything of substance. The little ScienceMom has had to say about this Oller book is more detail than you have given.

You depart with a statement implying you are a genius and we are all stupid, in that you have a limit. The thing is, such a statement just doesn’t ring true to Prof. Einstein for precisely the self-aggrandizing aspect.

I do value your input. I’m no genius. The science should be referenced to support my position on this particular site. The only concern I have at this point is to confirm with Dr. Deisher. You’re right, she should address the issues you brought to my attention, especially, as you say, her arbitrary decision to omit the CDDS data that establishes changepoints prior to 1979. That’s key for me personally.

What I have learned from this site, is that everybody likes to pick up the phone when I’m having a conversation specifically intended for you. It’s like having a three way conversation on a much grander scale. I’m not used to that. As I’ve said to Science Mom, you’re a good person, intelligent, and very successful. Perhaps wasting my time is the wrong thing to say. I have learned a great deal from leftbrainrightbrain. It’s critical to assess both sides of any position prior to coming to a conclusion. This site accomplishes that to a great degree for me, and reflects in my book.

You sir have taught me a great deal, and I respect you for that. There are two sides to every issue, somewhere in between is the truth. The only purpose of my writing a book was simply to bring greater awareness to the topic. I state the science and positions of either side objectively. And, you’re right. At this point, the burden of proof remains in the camp of my position. I do adhere to this…”La mentira mas grande jamas contada…que las vacunas son seguras & efectivas.

Thank you for your wishes, and your time. Good luck to you in all that you do.

I’ll say this, Big Pharma sells “Diet Pills” and those pills are deemed safe and effective based on “independent research”

The same people tell us that vaccines are safe.

So that is a big tell.

And thousands upon thousands of parents of autistic children are joining the ranks of the anti-vacciners. Thousands of people who get cancer or have a family member with cancer are beginning to realize that it is our food, our electronics and other additives deemed “safe” by the FDA that is causing it. They are joining our ranks as well. Welcome to the information age. Want to tell me more about how smoking does not cause cancer… Doctor?

And it is not pro-science. Do you see any research funding grants available for non-drug options? Do you see any research grants for scientists to investigate diet, health and exercise to avoid getting the flu? Do you see any funding or research going on studying indigenous peoples and how they don’t get sick? Any funding for researching the Amish? All I see is $$$ PHARMA $$$. I don’t ever see any research seeking cheap non-expensive pill based solutions. Actually, this is Capitalism at its worst…. I cured myself of an ulcer when I was younger, but I didn’t make any money doing it, so I can’t make any money telling people how I did it so I can’t afford to pay scientists to find out my solution worked.

Another big tell that Big Pharma and “independent studies” is complete bs is to look at Aspartame, High Fructose Corn Syrup, GMOs… etc. There are thousands of studies proving Aspartame is safe. Yet… deep down in your gut and mind you know it is not. I think of the people that I know in my life that are fat, lazy, disease ridden…etc you name it. Then I look at what lifestyles they live, and those who consume many diet products and pills are often the ones who suffer the most, whether it is depression, acid reflux, “GERD”, fatigue, obesity, you name it.

You don’t need a Ph.D. to see, if anything a Ph.D. compartmentalizes you so you don’t see a human being as a whole.

Hmmm, I once was in a research laboratory with a scientist testing out some drug and research on spine injuries. Do you know what this guy was eating for lunch? Taco Bell. I don’t trust anybody to advise me on my health if they eat Taco Bell. And yeah, there was blood on his hands, literally from the lab rats. Only he was incapable of washing his hands before eating his Taco Bell and subsequently trying to shake our hands…

Here is another one, are cell phones safe? Do you need a study to show this? How about that one guy who got cancer in 2 places… the fingers where he held his cell phone, and the spot near his waist where he would hold the cell phone. But no wait “correlation is not causation”

I say this – take a study on the flu shot, and just read it and tell me how would you conduct such a study, because there are none… Simple, give 50 rats the flu shot, then expose them to the flu virus, how many get the flu?

I got in a pissing match with Matt several months ago. But the writings truly on the wall. I even wrote a book about autism and vaccinations scheduled to published in February. I would be more than happy to sell Matt an autographed copy. You’re entitle to one as well. Seasons Greetings John.

who is this who darkens counsel by words without wisdom? There are scientific studies liking an association between neurological disorders and vaccinations. No my book is not a fictional account. I’m quite careful to consider the pros and the cons of either argument. Facts do support an association. We can simply agree to disagree. And let the readers decide for themselves. No need for derogatory rhetoric.

So then, show us your evidence. Surely, if you are so confident in your assertions, you can provide some actual scientific proof, since your previous posts here and elsewhere have been certainly lacking in science to support your assertions.

And so, to answer your question, you are the one bringing darkness to the world with your ignorance and hatred towards those with ASDs, while Matt and others like him are trying their best, despite your cruel and selfish efforts to do so otherwise, to support those with ASDs to live comfortably.

Buy the book and judge for yourself. It’s loaded with scientific facts. First of all, my son was recently diagnosed with an ASD. My goal is not to discredit Matt or any other parent of an autistic child. I am one. Secondly, I have not simply bothered to look at one side of this issue. I’m not a scientist, neither is Matt, and neither are you (I’d bet money on that). If I’m wrong please correct me. On the other hand I’ve had the opportunity to speak with one of the foremost scientific minds on the subject of autism and vaccinations.

Additionally, my editor is one of the best scientific researchers in the United States. Neither one of us share your points of view based purely on scientific research. Arguments can be made on either sides of the fence. Most people accept things at face value, like placing trust in their primary health care provider. Based on 1994 data developed from reviews of medical records of patients treated in New York hospitals, the Institute of Medicine, estimated that up to 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors. The basis of this estimate is nearly three decades old.

You want facts, they’re out there alright. I fervently believe it’s a big mistake on our part if we place trust in the CDC or governmental agencies to look out for our health and well being. I will not criticize you or anyone else that chooses not to agree with me. It’s a free country. I do not darken anyone’s counsel based on conjecture, here-say, or opinions. You can make fun of me all you want. That still won’t change my opinion or the facts, you need to further your research in order to have an intelligent conversation with me. Don’t accept everything at face value, question everything.

In response to a recent comment made by navalox, who asserted that your’s truly was ignorant and hateful towards those with ASD’s, no where did I imply that I was smarter than anybody. These are your words not mine. Based on all the information navlox has read and determined to be true, he could come to no other conclusion. His statement was neither plausible, nor was it based on scientific evidence. Likewise…The fact that I may, or may not be smarter has no bearing on the matter.

I harbor no ill will toward you or navox. You also mentioned “Ground shaking” evidence. I fervently believe we’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop on that matter. Currently there are several matters of great importance that await responsible scientific validation. Autism is but one. Simply take the age old argument of mercury, which has supposedly been put to bed. To claim that mercury has no effect in neurological conditions such as autism requires empirical proof of a null hypothesis. This is logically impossible because it requires testing and ruling out, one by one, all of the possible ways, in all of the possible situations that mercury might cause neurodegenerative conditions. No number of experiments in ant combination would be sufficient to achieve this goal.

If it’s any consolation Chris, I once believed as you, and Matt, and navalox. I’m also well aware that my argument will occasionally fall upon deaf ears. There will always be two camps to this division of science. My question is, with who does the burden of proof remain? It will, and has always remained in the camp of the opposition to so-called established science. For many years nineteenth century Hungarian Physician, Ignaz Semmelweis suggested that doctors should wash their hands prior to performing operations. He was drummed out of the profession by his colleagues. This is but one example of bucking the system.

I could spend all night citing you examples, but to what avail. I would be casting my pearls before swine (no, not calling you a pig, it’s a Biblical reference). Even Matt took a previous statement of mine completely out of context, insinuating that I told him, he shouldn’t love his own child, because he has autism. That is so not what I meant at all. In closing Chris, I think even you would benefit for purchasing my book, I’ll even sign it for you.

thank you for your requests. My book is scheduled to be published in February. The title, editor, and scientists will remain a secret until the book is released. This project has been over two years in the making. Any form of self promotion would be inappropriate and more than likely censored here.

You also made a fool of yourself on the Respectful Insolence blog recently, Jon Hewitt. I doubt that you’ve taken any crash courses in medical statistics and data analyses, since you posted this comment.

Thank you for your comment. Touche! Got me. However, to assume I’ve not educated myself on medical statistics or data analysis would be presumptuous, since posting that lengthy comment over a year ago. That comment was posted in order to elicit a response, any response. Haha, yeah my dad suggested that I educate myself on statistics and probability. He was right. Just read several of the comments to that post in September of 2013. Not surprised by the responses. To be expected.

My editor also suggested simply posting the facts concerning autism, and omitting any opinion, so as not to be thought of the fool. As you are so quick to point out. He was also right. Still, in spite of my previously conceived naivety, several points I made at that time still hold water. Here’s what I find amazing, you were able to pull up a comment I made over 15 months ago, all in a hurry to discredit me, and thereby discrediting anything I have to say. Please consider, that if a murderer witnesses a crime, his ill reputed character, doesn’t diminish the fact that he actually did witness a crime. You say I made a fool of myself. I say there’s a problem that you fail to acknowledge, based on one study.

I’ll go back to requiring empirical proof of a null hypothesis, in regards to neurological disorders such as autism, to establish there is no association. On the other hand, It takes just one positive demonstration that mercury poisoning causes the symptoms of autism to prove that mercury in vaccines is not safe in vaccines or in human teeth. Once a null hypothesis has been refuted by empirical evidence, it cannot be reestablished. Yet that is exactly what the CDC, FDA, AAP, ADA, and pharmaceutical companies have tried to sell us.

I don’t expect any love from the other side of the isle. Nevertheless, I wish you the best.

there is no such thing as exact science, nevertheless, my opinions are simply that. The intended purpose of my book is to have people look objectively at both sides of a controversial topic. Thereby, giving the readers enough information to arrive at a intelligent decision for themselves. I agree with your assessment of junk science, although that exists on either side of the fence. Somewhere in between is the truth.

Additionally, I believe several governmental agencies at times have relied on a deplorable lack of basic science to support arguments they embrace. Vile comments are directed and originate from either side of our endorsed positions. Unfortunately they appear to come with the territory, a casualty of war so-to-speak. Among all the rhetoric and name calling, the autistic incidence, and prevalence rates in our country increase on a correlative and linear level. To deny that truth would be a deplorable lack of established fact.

You’re absolutely right. I already have the title, a secured publishing contract, and have already been paid a standard contract fee for my work. Royalties are forthcoming based on sales. Right now I’m promoting my book and have a scheduled book signing in February.

again you are right. The books title will be released prior to it’s publication. Should be in January. I’ve had a great response, many organizations, and people have expressed interest in purchasing my book. I believe it will be a best seller. One of many. I am a gifted writer.

Knowing what you do about the business, I don’t have to tell you that writing a book is the most difficult thing that you’ll ever do in your entire life. My editor was right about that. Nick has over 23 years of experience. He’s written several books of his own, and helped many other people publish their own books. He’s unequivocally the best in the business, and when he say’s we’ll have a good product on our hands when we’re done, I believe him.

Don’t judge me until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes. Think not of yourself so all knowing…till you’ve accomplished what I have in life. You don’t know me very well, or what I’m capable of. Search your heart for answers. In there the truth will be found.

You never wrote a book about anything in your life, let alone a book about a complicated topic such as autism. Put your money where your mouth is. Write one, then try to get someone to publish it, and pay you for it, then tell me I’m wrong. Till then….put a lid on it. I’ve actually done that. Not many people can say that. You certainly can’t, now can you. You’re an armchair quarterback Narad. Anybody can cast stones from the familiarity of their comfort zone. You’re quite good at that.

Throw meaningless insults. Sticks and stones so-to-speak (haha). I’ve encountered your kind before, probably will for the rest of my life. In spite of your inexperience and self confessed expert opinion….do some more research. That doesn’t mean I still don’t respect your opinion, or your right to express it. I’d put my life on the line willing to defend you’re right’s, even if I don’t agree with them. I still love ya’ just the same. Come correct, don’t come at anybody sideways, and think before you speak. It will serve you well my friend.

Sullivan…you don’t have to answer…did your daughter ever have a NVICP table response to a vaccine? My son did. I feel bad, because he’s going to be okay. A Father named Chris had a son with a heart problem who had a severe reaction to a vaccine preventable disease. I don’t have all the facts…but he kept saying it was a “relative risk”, that children were far more likely to be harmed by the disease than the vaccine.

That was very honest….it’s your kid, or mine, and there is a far greater chance it will be a child like mine.

If your child has not had a severe reaction to a vaccine…if they had, would you feel different?

This would be easy to check, given that dockets in the NVICP are public record. And, no, you will not find my name listed as a petitioner.

I don’t know what you mean by “feel different”. Would I come to the same conclusion about the data? I believe I would. Given how strong the data are, I certainly hope so. But if the vaccine discussion tells us anything it is that bright, well educated people can and have come to believe strongly in something which is incorrect.

Would I have more (note the use of the word more) empathy and sympathy for those who believe their children were injured by vaccines? Possibly.

If you will, consider Kev Leitch, founder of Left Brain/Right Brain. He felt at one time that his child’s disability was the result of vaccine injury. He came to a different and strong conclusion otherwise. As have others. He didn’t lose his empathy or sympathy. He however did bring to the discussion the experience of having been taken down the path of belief in something wrong and damaging and that was a strong experience with lasting consequences.

Kind of you to say, although abusiveness isn’t necessarily a resignation of losing an argument. Rather, it’s just plain rude, and unnecessary. The facts should speak for themselves. There are good arguments to either side of most disagreements. I fervently believe that the readers should come to their own conclusions based on having all the facts to either side of any argument.Thereby coming to a well informed decision. That’s a right we should all have.

I want to believe all vaccinations are good, safe, and effective. However, that’s simply not a scientific fact. When it comes to a causal association between autism and vaccinations, we get into a gray area. Good arguments can be made on either side of that issue. Whose right and whose wrong? The science, in many cases can support either side. So what are we to believe? Again, that should be an individual decision. Not a decision imposed by a governmental institution. The government’s gotten way to big for it’s own britches, and mine, dare I say all of us.

“When it comes to a causal association between autism and vaccinations, we get into a gray area. Good arguments can be made on either side of that issue. ”

I’ve been looking for 10 years, reading the papers and arguments that supposedly support the idea. It is precisely those papers and arguments that showed me that those arguments don’t hold water. I’ve seen a lot of bad arguments supporting the “vaccines cause autism” idea and, frankly, a lot of intellectual dishonesty. And some just garden variety dishonesty.

Point well taken, I agree with you. Additionally I have seen a lot of bad arguments that support vaccinations do not cause autism. Truthfully, it only takes one good scientific argument to disprove a null hypothesis. Not many.

You don’t want to prove a null hypothesis. You want to prove a negative–vaccines don’t cause autism.

There’s pretty much one open argument on vaccines rarely causing autism. The two main hypotheses (thimerosal causes autism and the MMR causes autism) are false. Certainly to the level of putting to rest the claim that the rise in autism rates (the “autism epidemic”) is caused by vaccines.

As a general rule–the idea that any universal exposure is behind the rise in autism rates is not supported by data. The fact is that the rate of identified autism varies dramatically within the U.S. (and elsewhere) by geography and by race/ethnicity. It is impossible to square the idea that vaccines are causing an epidemic of autism but only in certain areas.

I believe, based on your expertise, and knowledge concerning an association, you are correct sir. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you are right. If I’m correct, then you are assuming, based on what you know, and believe to be true, that there is absolutely no association between vaccinations and autism. Again, this statement is not plausible, nor is it based on scientific evidence.

By implying there is no evidence suggesting an association between autism and vaccinations, you are in fact incorrect. Because there is such evidence in existence.

I do believe that you’re challenging me to a duel (haha). I’m not going to say this would be like getting into a battle of wits with an unarmed man. I respect your position completely. Furthermore, are you implying that there is absolutely no evidence that vaccinations are casual in autism? Not even one single study to support that position? That certainly would be presumptuous. There are.

You most assuredly won’t find any on this website, no surprise there. You won’t find any studies supporting that position from the CDC. Again, no surprise. That leaves us with independent research. Indeed, you will discover that there are several studies to support this position. I won’t do the homework for you. I believe if you look objectively you’ll get an answer to you question. My words alone won’t convince you, while you’re entrenched in your present system of belief. Scaugh at me if you will. Be completely objective, and totally honest with yourself….don’t believe me.

“It is time we clean house at the CDC before the victims of vaccine injury get AK47s and take independent action. My son suffered a vaccine injury because BIG PHARMA decided to poison all Americans by contaminating the vaccines with mercury, aborted fetal cell DNA, and retroviruses so they could sell Psych drugs to these crippled vaccine injured victims. BIG PHARMA murdered 26 Americans in Connecticut because Adam Lanza was crippled by a vaccine injury that caused ASD and forced him to take Psych drugs. Red’s Soup Kitchen Letters To Friends ITV show will expose BIG PHARMA and the rest of you incompetents.”

I found that he had a bunch of YouTube videos but didn’t dive in past that. The blurb above about the AK47’s demonstrates that this is not a reasonable person. The “considered and respectful” fashion statement is pure fiction.

As a rule, I don’t get my science from YouTube videos of people giving skype lectures with their socks hanging in the background.

And thank you for noticing. Truth be told those were not my own words, they are in fact my dads. Unfortunately, he’s more than slightly biased, and extremely prejudice. Hates gays and Muslims too. He’s not afraid to say it either. I believe that my dad has a personality disorder.

I was conscripted to voice his thoughts and opinions. I do not adhere or agree with my father in most cases. As painfully distasteful as my dad comes across, he’s still my dad. I think I’m the only one that loves him. Far as I know, he doesn’t have any true friends. That’s a long story.

Nevertheless, I separated from my father, because I refused to voice his hateful opinions. At one point he though I was a CIA operative, a trained assassin for the US government. Yeah, that’s my dad alright…..

As for information on the internet or youtube, some of it’s accurate. Take Sal Khan’s math videos for example. The simple fact is, that the source of information acquired from someone of questionable character, does not diminish the validity of the information. No. If a known liar witnesses a crime, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s lying about the crime when he testifies about it in court under oath. He still witnessed a crime.

that youtube site was all orchestrated by my father, it’s all his. I agree with you. The content of his posted remarks were hateful, and wrong. I do not subscribe to them. I am making no excuses. I haven’t spoken with my dad in quite some time. He still manages to post some outrageous comments on my facebook page. None of which I subscribe to either.

On the other hand I do get the felling that you’re gradually starting to develop a sincere hatred for me without just cause. It need not be so. I may disagree with your opinion, but that hardly constitutes a development of animosity. We don’t know each other. But, nevertheless I respect your God given right to speak freely. There’s a lot of hatred in the world. I don’t have a hateful bone in my body. If you’re looking to be angry with anyone please point your finger in a different direction.

Those who do know me couldn’t disagree with you more. The so called serious matter which you refer to good sir is misguided in my direction. There’s no need for character assassination here. We simply stand on opposite sides of a very serious topic, nothing more nothing less.

Don’t start throwing insinuations that my responses to you are driven by hate. It’s a cheap diversion.

I have zero tolerance for people who spread hate speech as whoever is posting those videos has done. I have no tolerance for people who advocate violence, as is done in the video. Nothing to do with hate.

Narad, I suppose that it will take me some time to forget that image of someone speaking with an audience of sweat socks in the background. If that is Hewitt, he might have a future in politics as John Best’s running mate in 2016.

That was some mental picture alright. Don’t think I’ll readily forget that mental image either. We all do stupid things at times, that’s the beauty of being human. Politics eh, my mother always thought I should become a pastor.

I glanced at some of the youtube titles, and they seem to be addressing some of the same points as Mr. Hewitt’s first wall of text comment here dated September 7, 2013 at 11:36. Also, the person depicted on that page looks to be a similar age to someone who graduated from high school in 1977.

The authors also stated, the reported prevalence of ASD has increased during the last two decades. They also say ASD is a rare disorder. Even Matt Carey agrees there’s an environmental factor. I won’t even bring up conflicts of interest in this study or the 2003 study, suffice it to say they do exist.

Environmental factor does not equate with a rising prevalence. A rising prevalence does not need to be tied to an environmental factor.

Forgive me if I misrepresented you previously, I apologize. Now we’re getting back to the true issue. “Environmental factor does not equate with a rising prevalence…And a rising prevalence does not need to be tied to an environmental factor…It’s a common mistake by people who don’t think this through.” Think I quoted you correctly that time.

Will you at least concede that the incidence and prevalence of autism is rising, because it is. Am I to believe that genetics account for such momentous increases, because that has in fact been disproved scientifically. Is it a matter of better awareness then? No it clearly isn’t. Perhaps it’s a matter of broadening the definition. If that were the case we wouldn’t have seen a steady continual linear increase on any graph that we’ve ever seen.

Are we diagnosing better? Is that really it? Something else is responsible. That only leaves the possibility of an environmental factor. So yes it’s fair to postulate that an environmental factor does play the most significant roll in a rising prevalence.

As to a “true” or secular increase in autism, two teams have suggested that a fraction of the increases seen can be attributed to an increase in parental age. Autism risk increases with parental age and people are having children later, hence an increase in the fraction of those with autism. This would be similar to the prevalence of Down Syndrome, which has also increased due to the same reason.

So, stating that it has been “disproved scientificallY” that genetics can have a significant impact on a rising prevalence is just plain ignorant.

Are we doing a better job at diagnosing autism? Do you really have to ask that? Of course we are. Of course it is playing a HUGE role. And we are still not diagnosing all autitics, even as children. The recent CDC autism report gave a rate that was 20% due to unidentified autistics.

Haha…I haven’t got this much attention since my first birthday. It would seem to me, that if nothing I had to say was of any value, or that if I was in fact deemed as delusional, no one would pay attention to anything I say. There’s no such thing as bad advertising. So thank you all for that.

Let my try to answer your question, if I’m wrong please set me straight. My father posted all the crazy, often offensive comments on twitter, I’ve don’t read or post things on twitter. I would do a taped video presentation, upon his request. Then unbeknownst to me, dad would post offensive comments. What he did I cannot assume responsibility for. He’s done many things right in the past. That wasn’t one of them.

Additionally, in referencing the content of what I said wasn’t so delusional at all. I am by no means a professional broadcaster. Never wanted to be. I’m quite content with a literary medium for expressing my opinion. That’s another reason I severed myself from Dad’s youtube antics.

In retrospect, none of that truly diminishes anything I bring to the table in terms of vaccinations or autism. But once again thank you for all the attention, and the free advertising (haha).

No getting attention was never my intention from the get go. Originally, I simply posted a comment on this site. Frankly, I was surprised to get a response at all. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything at all. No doubt most people on this site will agree with that statement. Right or wrong, at least I had the guts to voice my opinion, and stand by it amid all the heavy mortar fire and insults.

I have no problem with people posting opposing views on this site. However, this devolved into a lot of “no you’re wrong/yes, I’m right” with little substance to back up your claims. I doubt anyone here would agree with the postulation that you should never have posted your comments here.

Defending a position is only valuable if the position is defensible. The idea that autism is a vaccine-induced epidemic is not defensible. And rehashing the old arguments does no one any good. Consider R. Kennedy and his return to the mercury debate. He thought he would change the world by threatening to publish his book. Instead he published and no one cares.

the youtube account is in fact under my fathers sole control. He set it up. I’m also not afraid to disclose the fact that I am electronically challenged at best. Many people my age are. I didn’t know how to turn on or shut off a computer until 2012. Sad but true. If I knew how to delete this youtube account I most certainly would.

Don’t even know the password. My dad was born in 1936. Narad, when I finally learned how to copy, cut, and paste, it was like Jesus walked into the room. I can however read and write, so I guess I’m worth my weight in salt at least.

Well, since you are requiring people to “pay” i.e. buy your book, to examine your evidence, it pretty much puts you in the same class as the “shills” that the anti-vax people claim are out in the world “shilling” for big Pharma…..

And as far as advertising goes….well, another example of your delusion (schizophrenia runs in families, you know).

I hesitate to be critical of a person’s father, but you certainly have my sympathies for growing up in that environment. Let’s look back at a comment, written by your father but under his name on YouTube: “My son suffered a vaccine injury…”

I take it that son is you. Aside from bolstering your claim that the comments were written by your father (as you have made no statements about having a son that I’ve seen), this suggests a great deal. Leaving aside speculation, you may want to consider that your father is wrong on vaccines, just as he is wrong on many other counts.

Your sympathy is duly noted. I think we’re straying away from the topic here, however Whose to say that I am not the victim of a vaccine injury. I never said that I wasn’t. And yes like you, I also have a child who was recently diagnosed with an ASD. Both of our disorders may very well be attributed to vaccines, or not.

I have had a great deal of time to consider everything that you have said. It also appears to me that I’m not looking at the same research that you are. If that were the case, then I would only be able to draw the same conclusions that you do. Why is it Matt, that I have so readily been able to find scientific studies that support an association between vaccines and neurological disorders. Are you suggesting that there isn’t any evidence supporting an association? If so, I must respectfully disagree with you.

In any event I sincerely respect the fact that you bother to give me the time of day. I do in fact have a great deal of respect for you and what you have done, you’re an excellent investigative journalist. This book of mine may very well be my swan song in the autism arena. That remains to be seen.

In regards to my father, well lets just say he’s wrong about a lot of things. But as I’ve said previously, even a blind squirrel stumbles across a nut every now and then. My conclusions are not based on my fathers opinion. They are based on established fact, and several other well respected researchers, and scientists that share my opinion.

Allow me to address said youtube videos. These are almost two years old, At the time I sincerely thought I was doing the right thing, I was trying to help my father. I had no idea that it would eventually turn out to be a character assassination at my expense. I even argued with my father to remove and retract any hateful statements that he posted. At the time I had not even considered writing a book.

You may very well have have a storied childhood, or not, there is no such thing as a normal family. Some families are far more dysfunctional than others. Such is the case for me. That’s my problem, and I’ll have to live with all those painful memories. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m wrong about everything, or anything that I have to say, at this point in my life. So yes… I do have a serious neurological disorder and so does my son.

Mr. Hewitt: “Why is it Matt, that I have so readily been able to find scientific studies that support an association between vaccines and neurological disorders. Are you suggesting that there isn’t any evidence supporting an association? If so, I must respectfully disagree with you.”

It depends on what you consider scientific evidence. Unfortunately there are many studies done by some who have no qualifications, or have deliberately misused data. You can find many of those discussed on this blog.

I am in total agreement with you. There are many studies done poorly. One either side of the fence. Looking from a purely objective standpoint, I could apply your statement to either side of the argument. It comes as no surprise that on this website ,you would be exposed to anything other than research and scientific studies that support your position.

And that’s alright. Many people support your position. I don’t. It would really come as a surprise, if there were any studies to support an association here sir. They simply won’t be found on this website. And, they never will. I believe that is something referred to as scientific biased. Any one could make a strong argument for your entrenched position. I could easily argue that point myself, based on what I consider to be your good science.

However, the science is out there. Some of it does not support your position. When it comes to burden of proof, at this point it remains on the side of the “opposite position.” Which Matt so clearly pointed out. This is a historically indicative of any previous scientific argument, that opposed mainstream science. The burden of proof has always remained on the other side. This argument is no different. There are so many things that you’re not aware of behind the scenes. Or simply refuse to acknowledge. I don’t blame you.

Quite frankly, I’m surprised that I haven’t been censored as of yet. That day may come. Once the personal vendettas and character assassinations cease. This site will eventually exterminate my opinion, as it doesn’t fit into the norm. Or not. That remains to be seen. Until that time I will respond to as many messages I receive. Some people like to talk behind my back. Those messages I don’t receive, at least you had the fortitude to respond. Kudos to you.

Good point, I hope my good manners and respectful demeanor will keep me afloat a little longer. As for Brian Hooker, I don’t necessary endorse his position. When it comes to Dr. Deisher, you would have to illustrate for me where she has tried to get her data to fit her position. I’ve known her for quite some time.

Do they actually censor people on Age of Autism? I would think that if they had anything meaningful to say they wouldn’t mind sharing that with all of us. Or not.

Let’s start with some minor points–such as false statements in the abstract

“All live born infants who later developed autistic disorder delivered after 1 January 1970, whose redacted vaccination and autistic disorder diagnosis information is publicly available in databases maintained by the US Federal Government, Western Australia, UK, and Denmark.”

Denmark does not have publicly available databases of this sort. I know, I’ve asked. She scanned the data from another paper. Same thing with the CDDS dataset she used–she scanned a paper by an EPA team. She neglected to cite the comment to that EPA paper, the one that shows that when correctly graphed the CDDS data shows changepoints in the 1970s, not when she claims them. Note how she neglected to include data before 1979, when the clear changepoint is found. Notice that she applies a “hockey stick” analysis to data that from the CDDS that are clearly exponential. Fitting an exponential to two straight lines is like fitting a circle with a square. You can do it but it is meaningless.

But you noticed all of that already, didn’t you? Since you’ve put so much time into this study, right?

I do believe I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice. Tell me something, am I really worth the time? If anything I have to say has absolutely no basis at all, then why bother sending me any comments? It’s all junk science right! Let it go. I really like you Matt. Your well educated and extremely intelligent. You do good work.

But when you resort to attacking my character to undermine any argument I bring to the table, I think that’s wrong. Now your telling me that Dr. Deisher manipulated data. I’ll have to call her next week to find out if that’s true. Admittedly I did not read her last paper. You in fact may be right. However, I can’t assume that’s true until I hear both sides of the issue. Over the last two years have read many of Dr. Deisher’s papers. I found no fault in her conclusions. Her credentials speak for themselves, additionally, having spoken with her previously, her character also speaks for itself. I don’t need to defend her. She’s quite good at that all on her own.

Now if we want to talk about manipulating data, we need not look any further than the CDC. That’s documented. Come to think of it Dr. Deisher has also done youtube videos. Granted, she didn’t have any socks in the background of any of her presentations, but I think her science is good. We all know you don’t. Have you ever read the book Autism, The Diagnosis,Treatment, & Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic, by John W. Oller Jr. PhD, and Stephen D. Oller, PhD? Have they manipulated any data? Is their science junk science too? Please tell me it is.

You keep avoiding direct questions. I point out specific and serious flaws in Deisher’s recent paper and you just come back with you haven’t read the paper and you will have to call her and you found no fault with her conclusions. If you aren’t going to do your own analysis, aren’t going to participate in this conversation in a real and substantive way, what is the purpose of continuing this discussion? So you can respond with “have you read this book?” Really? Either there’s something in that book of value and you can discuss it here, or there isn’t. It’s on you to make that point. Not, “have you read it”.

I don’t care about Deisher’s credentials or her character. It’s her paper that’s being discussed here. And it is junk. If I had been a referee it would have been rejected. Not because I disagree with her, but because her paper is bad science. As I’ve noted above, she misinformed her readers about the source of her information. They are not from public databases. She got the data from old papers. She arbitrarily cut off the data analysis at 1979 when the major changepoints in the CDDS data are before then. She knows about this and should at least address the fact. She knows about these other changepoints because they are noted in a comment to the EPA team’s paper she cite and from which she got her data. She knows that the data are basically exponential from that same comment and she fails to address that.

I have not checked with the team in Australia but I wouldn’t be surprised if those are not from a public database either. Again, she took the data from a graph in an existing paper.

She fails to note that in the CDDS dataset the changepoints vary by geography. Had she actually obtained the datasets from the CDDS (which they do not make as readily available as before) she would have seen that the trends vary dramatically across the state. How does one reconcile various changepoints with the fact that the vaccines she blames were rolled out statewide at the same time? She doesn’t because she avoided that question entirely.

The same can be said for the IDEA data she uses.

She states “Thus, rising autistic disorder prevalence is directly related to vaccines manufactured utilizing human fetal cells.” No responsible referee nor editor should have allowed that statement. Given that at best she can show a correlation (she didn’t), she can’t directly tie the two together.

Her paper is a great example of the sort of junk science that shows that there is no substance to her position. If she had real data, she’d present that in place of this.

You bring up some excellent points, I simply wanted to speak with her to get her side of the story that’s all. Sorry about referencing the book, you had suggested a book for me to read previously, I saw no harm. Yes the book does have many points of value that would be good to discuss here, that more than support my position. Frankly I’m getting tired of all this, as you say what’s the point. I’ve got far more important things to do with my time.

I had no idea I was attacking you in any way. As Einstein once said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That’s what we have here. Don’t worry I’ll just go away quietly. But you really should read that book.

Mr. Hewitt: “As for Brian Hooker, I don’t necessary endorse his position. When it comes to Dr. Deisher, you would have to illustrate for me where she has tried to get her data to fit her position”

Embedded in their names were links to other articles (on this webpage they are underlined, hover your mouse or stylus over the words). Those are articles about the deficits in their research, which also have other URL links for more information.

I will say this, after doing well over 10,000 hrs. of research and reading scientific articles, I believe to be qualified to make such a statement. For many decades I believed vaccinations were safe and effective. At this point in my life, I can’t assume beyond a reasonable doubt that vaccines play no roll in autism. They most certainly do.

Vaccinations in their current presentation, are questionable at best. No doubt this will change given time. Science, is not exact. No one can deny that vaccinations have been proven to be harmful. In many cases anecdotal accounts carry great weight. When it comes to thimerosal…perhaps we should have left it in all of our vaccinations. Would that have proven innocuous in the rising rates of incidents and prevalence. Who knows.

Since the removal of thimerosal hasn’t curtailed the linear increase in autism, should we therefore conclude that thimerosal has no impact, certainly not! Not unlike me Science Mom, it’s up to you to thoroughly investigate the matter on your own. My opinion carries little weight. We all need to be completely objective in our reasoning. The science is clearly out there.

Well, because I previously failed to correctly implement a blockquote, I can understand why it can be difficult to express precise meaning here. Since some of what you write seems at first pass to make no sense, could you try again?

I thought my statement was completely coherent, perhaps I am wrong. Won’t be the first or the last time. I still side by my comment, that vaccines are neither proven to be safe or efficacious in their current presentation. There are in fact studies that support this position. Is thimerosal innocuous in relation autism. Definitely not.

Yes I am excited. Writing a book is a momentous feet for anyone. Originally, my publisher had scheduled to publish the book in February. He informed me on Saturday, January 3, 2015, that publication would be delayed for a couple of months. Primarily due to the fact that my editor, Nick, suffers from a rare neurological disorder, and is scheduled to undergo a very complicated surgery in the near future.

A minor delay, as Nick has also ensured me that he is very near completion. At this point, the only thing left for me to do is to footnote all the studies, AMA style. A book tour. Capital idea Chris. I’m not opposed to doing local book signings, as my own health is a determinate factor. National and local organizations that focus on autism, have expressed interest in promoting the book when it’s available to the public.

If I understand correctly, this book will also be available through electronic formats, and Amazon.

Never considered Skyhorse publishing. Regardless, I never really considered any publishing company prior to securing a publishing contract with one. The book simply states facts, and allows the reader to arrive at their own conclusion

I agree with you, in fact I have made erroneous statements in the past. Yes I am fallible. However, my editor has done a painstakingly excellent job to ensure the published facts are correct. As for me, well…even a blind squirrel stumbles across a nut every now and then.

There is no clarity in either faction. Both have decided the answers without regard to the other side. Both deal in absolutes, in dogma, without regard to possibilities. Science can follow a thread without a inkling of cynicism…even though we all know everything could change tomorrow with the introduction of new knowledge. Alternative knowledge follows the mildest thread and declares it gospel. I wish you all would use the brains God give you…haha…

I’ve spent a great deal of time looking at the arguments and papers that purport to support the vaccines-cause-autism idea. This website provides much of that record. And I’m not the only one. I started out in this completely agnostic and seeking an answer to a question which at the time was very prominent in the autism community.

So I disagree with the idea that “both have decided answers without regard to the other side” based on my own experience.

Must be a slow news week, because you’ve been generous in giving me your time and opinion, I can remember when you saw no point in reading my responses. You’ve come a long way since then. But that still doesn’t answer my original question….why have I been so readily able to find research and scientific studies that contradict your position?

Are the researchers and scientists I’ve followed all wrong? Is that it? If so I’ll apologize. Where have you been looking? I’m just a lay person. But I certainly can read. In my opinion, purely my opinion, it’s hard to believe you could be objective and impartial. To admit any uncertainty would be blasphemous from where you stand, or am I wrong?

I just sent a message to Matt Sullivan. I’ll ask you the same question as I asked him. Have you ever read a book called Autism The Diagnosis, Treatment & Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic, written by John W. Oller Jr. PhD, and Steven D. Oller, PhD? These are by no means all of the researchers and scientists I follow, but I would be interested to hear your input on them.

Mr. Hewitt: ” Have you ever read a book called Autism The Diagnosis, Treatment & Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic, written by John W. Oller Jr. PhD, and Steven D. Oller, PhD? ”

No, and I not likely to. It looks like they are a linguist and a speech language pathologist. They may have the qualifications to treat speech disorders in relationship to autism, but not the epidemiology.

Are the researchers and scientists I’ve followed all wrong? Is that it? If so I’ll apologize.

Yes, utterly and completely wrong.

Where have you been looking?

PubMed as well as non-published “articles”.

I’m just a lay person. But I certainly can read.
And that’s where you go off the rails; you are not qualified to parse the literature and come to the correct conclusion. You do what every other autism-guru wannabe does which is seek out the information which confirms your pre-ordained bias and then pretend that you are the paragon of impartiality.

In my opinion, purely my opinion, it’s hard to believe you could be objective and impartial. To admit any uncertainty would be blasphemous from where you stand, or am I wrong?

I’ve read many posts and statements from Sullivan where he stated that there are gaps in data and even gaping holes and no one has accused him of “blasphemy”. So yes you’re very wrong and your continued pretense that you are just some humble guy who is going to publish the epitome of autism research where hundreds of scientists and physicians have failed is annoying and arrogant.

Thank you for your comments. I used the term blasphemous because Matt used the word agnostic. No madam I am far from arrogant. My book isn’t, as you say, all about research. That’s an assumptive statement. I don’t think anything but good things about Matt. In fact I have complimented him several times in the past. He’s a good person, very intelligent, and quite successful.

I have no qualms with him or you, or anybody personally. My anger is directed in a different direction. Indeed I have learned a great deal from this site. The only point I was trying to make, perhaps done so inappropriately, was that there is more information out there to consider. That’s all. I’m not going to print the volumes of information on this site. That would take me a great deal of time.

Additionally, I simply suggested a book for Matt, and Chris to read, I’ll offer you the title and the author’s name as well. Autism The Diagnosis, Treatment & Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic, John W. Oller Jr., PhD & Stephen D. Oller, PhD. It address all of the issues Matt does, from another prospective, nothing more, nothing less.

I will also impart with you the wisdom of the late Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, “you will be the same person in five years except for the people you meet and the books you read.” The book I’ve referenced is a definite must read for anyone that wants to know about autism. I’ve read it twice.

I apologize if I came across to anyone as arrogant, those in fact were not my original intentions. A lay person, yes. well read, yes. Arrogant, perhaps I can be at times. Sorry if I offended you Science Mom.

The only point I was trying to make, perhaps done so inappropriately, was that there is more information out there to consider.

Very inappropriately because you arrogantly assume that we have not poured over the same information you have. We have come to a different conclusion because we are well-equipped to evaluate the body of information which you have used to draw your erroneous and frankly harmful conclusions.

Additionally, I simply suggested a book for Matt, and Chris to read, I’ll offer you the title and the author’s name as well. Autism The Diagnosis, Treatment & Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic, John W. Oller Jr., PhD & Stephen D. Oller, PhD. It address all of the issues Matt does, from another prospective, nothing more, nothing less.

More self-appointed experts operating well outside their areas of expertise and drawing the same wrong conclusions you have. It is not a must-read, just more self-serving drek that harms the autism community.

I apologize if I came across to anyone as arrogant, those in fact were not my original intentions. A lay person, yes. well read, yes. Arrogant, perhaps I can be at times. Sorry if I offended you Science Mom.

I’m not offended; your evasive, passive-aggressive tactics are annoying, big difference. I daresay that you are an example of what is going to happen to a not-insigificant minority of autistic children who are growing up in a household where they are taught they are damaged and need to be cured and that is sad, especially to think that you will be passing this message onto your own child. I wish you would reconsider your use of your talents.

Please tell me why I should buy a book which by all appearances is pure drek, citing scab scientists and featuring a forward by the most vile charlatan Wakefield, not to mention (again) written by self-appointed experts writing outside their fields of expertise. And it’s a book, anyone can’t write a book isn’t that correct Mr. Hewitt? That doesn’t mean it’s accurate or fact-checked by actual experts in the field.

Wakefield’s done a lot of stupid stuff,

Gee ya think?

I’ll grant you that. That doesn’t discredit, nor does it diminish the research and science of Oller & Oller. You haven’t read the book.

So why pimp a book written by non-experts and who clearly align themselves with the worst of the worst in dodgy autism science?

Prof. Oller is also promoting the antithesis of science: creationism. Also, his experience is in teaching English, and linguistics (language acquisition, not speech/language pathology). From the second page of his CV:

So you see anything related to actual biological science? Anything on cognitive psychology? How about biochemistry? Neurology? Immunology? Nope. Nothing. Yet he has presented himself as an expert in those subjects.

Mr. Hewitt, in the future please limit your scientific offerings to PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers. The Ollers do not qualify, and nor does Dr. Deisher, mostly due to reputation.

What’s missing in this discussion is any statement about what is in this book that is different than every other discussion of vaccines causing autism.

And, given that the book was written years ago and apparently two of the three people who read it are frequent commenters/writers on AoA, wouldn’t any new insights have been disseminated by now?

Which is to say, since there’s nothing in the public discourse that is a convincing argument that vaccines are, in fact, behind the rise in identified autism, and that public discourse would by now include the insights offered by Oller et al., and even our esteemed guest can’t seem to produce any insights gained from said book, I remain unconvinced that my time is well spent reading it.

But, as a childish debate point (to whit, “you haven’t read it haven’t you”) it seems to have some value.

There are a lot of inconsistencies in Jon Hewitt’s statements. I’m still confused about his neurological disorder and his child’s recent ASD diagnosis.

IIRC Mr. Hewitt stated that he took his father’s advice about researching medical statistics, which he has now combined with research about ASDs and the medical literature on ASDs and Vaccines. In fact he claims he devoted 10,000 hours to his self directed studies and he made no mention of having a college degree in a relevant field. Truly an amazing feat.

No I do not have a college degree. My formal brick and mortar education ceased in 1977, That doesn’t mean I stopped educating myself since then. I am an autodidact. Since 1977 I have taught myself three languages. I’m not claiming to be Omniscient.

You can question anything you want, but our disorders have been diagnosed and confirmed. There are studies referenced in my book, thus the AMA style, as suggested by my editor, who has a far greater formal education, and research experience than I do.

Ok, Let’s put Wakefield aside. The main reason I reference this book is because it does state factual information from the CDC. It also addresses issues such as the autism epidemic as being imagined, the theory of the broadening the definition, the theory of better detection and awareness, the theory of diagnostic substitution, and the theory of intellectual diversity.

This particular book is filled with established facts. It looks at the very definition of autism as defined by the DSM. The mercury hypothesis, the historical account of diseases and vaccinations themselves, and most all of the suggested treatments and interventions for children who have autism.

Is this book the bible, or be all to end all, of autism and it’s probable causes. No. It’s like you said, just a book, however it’s not a fictional account. Yes there’s a lot of charts and statistics. I’m merely suggesting that it should be read. Nothing more than that. There are a lot of books written on autism and vaccinations. I happen to think it’s a good book, based on many established facts.

This whole topic of autism is a hot button topic, and will continue to be for a very long time. Because the incidence and prevalence will only continually grow. It may not affect you or everyone personally now. But eventually, unless something is done to address the issue, and take corrective measures, it will. In closing, we simply don’t have all the answers. But I am convinced rising prevalence worldwide is environmentally based.That is simply my opinion.

No, let’s not leave out Wakefield just because it’s embarrassing to you. It’s crucial to your argument that this is a valid publication. Let’s take for example pp. xi, paragraph 3, the statements made by Wakefield are demonstrably false. The risk of MMR and an autism diagnosis decreased with a younger age, contrary to what anti-vaxxers, including Wakefield have postulated. Yet Wakefield blatantly lies about the study results and Oller & Oller clearly take no issue with this. Shall I go on?

The main reason I reference this book is because it does state factual information from the CDC.

Not from what I’ve seen. I’ve just read several pages available and it’s just more of the same drek from unqualified, biased hucksters e.g. Kenedy and Wakefield are the good guys (even though their respective bodies of works have been thoroughly debunked), the CDC is bad. Your book will undoubtedly be no better edited so don’t get too wedded to the idea that it will be a “swan song”.

There are two sides to every issue, somewhere in between is the truth.

No no and no. That is false equivalence and appeal to the golden mean. There are no two equal arguments about our planet’s shape because by your logic the Earth is the shape of a vesica piscis for example. The fact that you have lent validity to an untenable position is just more evidence of how unqualified you are.

The only purpose of my writing a book was simply to bring greater awareness to the topic. I state the science and positions of either side objectively.

If that were even remotely true then you wouldn’t be trumpeting the vaccine-causation pseudohypothesis.

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[…] “Autism, Denmark and again no link with vaccines”… an interesting article from ‘Left Brain / Right Brain’, an independent blog whose “core content and interest has always been autism and the news, science – and bad science – associated with it.” These are the studies quoted in the blog: ‘Recurrence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Full- and Half-Siblings and Trends Over Time: A Population-Based Cohort Study’ [Aug. 2013]. and ‘A Population-Based Study of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism’ [Nov. 2002] […]

[…] There’s a story that goes around the vaccine/autism groups that, contrary to published reports, the autism rate in Denmark went down after thimerosal was removed from their vaccines. Of course, this is all part of a cover-up. I discussed this previously in No, the autism prevalence in Denmark did not go down with the removal of thimerosal. In that piece, I looked at a number of published studies and found that the autism rate in Denmark has continued to climb post thimerosal. Later, a study came out which in one place listed autism prevalence vs year for Denmark, and I discussed that as Autism, Denmark and again no link with vaccines. […]

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